


Heroism

by TheRealProtector



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Protector of the Small- Tamora Pierce, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Reflection, Thought Exercise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 14:49:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12015024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRealProtector/pseuds/TheRealProtector
Summary: They tell tales of her, much later.They claim she was eight feet tall and pure muscle. They say that the blade of her glaive glinted like a falling star as she spun it faster than light itself. They claim she rode an angry, bitter avalanche of a horse that knew her mind as well as she herself did. They speak endlessly about the depths of her care for the common folk, the animals, the downtrodden and the forgotten.(They call her a hero and a revolutionary and she was. They call her a legend and she is.)





	Heroism

**Author's Note:**

> I've always loved Protector of the Small over and above everything else, but I've never really written before.  
> This is what happens when I read nostalgic, tragic Harry Potter one shots and then PotS one shots.
> 
> FYI I am writing this at 2am and on 4 hours of sleep. It is not terribly coherent. It is actually pretty much just stream of consciousness. I wrote it for myself, but figured I might as well put it up here? It's angstier than I expected- oops?
> 
> *I don't own Protector of the Small- that's Tamora Pierce. I'm just having a bit of fun here.*

They tell tales of her, much later.  
They claim she was eight feet tall and pure muscle. They say that the blade of her glaive glinted like a falling star as she spun it faster than light itself. They claim she rode an angry, bitter avalanche of a horse that knew her mind as well as she herself did. They speak endlessly about the depths of her care for the common folk, the animals, the downtrodden and the forgotten.  
(They call her a hero and a revolutionary and she was. They call her a legend and she is.)  
They say Alanna was a pebble, but it was Kel who was the boulder, Kel who started the rockslide. They discuss how she withstood bullying and contempt and prejudice as the first female knight.  
(They can’t imagine the extent of it. They don’t want to even try.)  
They believe that she was unflinching and unflappable, always ready to put the past behind her and start each day anew.  
(They never mention the crippling loneliness and fear and sadness. Why would they? Heroes are not allowed weaknesses- not even the momentary ones, not even the ones that make them human.)  
The adults say she was thoughtful, quiet, respectful, and introspective.  
(She had no one to talk to. Even as she acquired friends and mentors, she walked a lonely path in life. She walked the hero’s road.)  
The pages remember that she was only 11 years old when she faced her greatest fear, 13 years old when she led a spidren hunt, 14 years old when she led her little crew to take down bandits all alone.  
(They conveniently omit nights upon nights of vomit and sleeplessness and nightmares. They forget that she was only 14 when she killed a man and woke up with blood on her hands that she could not wash off for the rest of her short life.)  
They all tell of how she squired for the Giantkiller himself. Even at 14 it was clear she would be the best of the best, they insist.  
(They don’t mention the six weeks of agonizing waiting while knight after knight ignored her before Raoul approached her.)  
Some say that she raised a griffin. Others say she rode it. Naysayers claim she took in an impoverished, angry cat.  
Many recall the awe as she knocked countless conservatives knights out of their saddles on the tilting fields. They paint stories of supportive crowds and glory and sunshine and beauty.  
(They neglect that some of these ‘honorable’ knights tried to kill her. They pretend that she had more supporters than just her page friends, Raoul, and the Third Company. They gloss over the conservatives who wanted to kill her for an imagined slight against a boy who never learned.)  
Most of all, though, they remember what she did during the Second Scanran War. They spin tales of her prowess fighting unimaginable metal monsters raised from the dead. They laud her protection of commoners at the fort.  
(No one ever hears of Tomas, whose head was sliced clean off by the monsters. No one mentions the Scanran children whose lives were taken to power the war. Most of all, no one remembers that Kel’s assignment was seen as the lowest of the low when she accepted it. They forget that it was an insult.)  
Children in the streets enact the mission into Scanra: the sneaking out quietly and carefully, with friends and backup and supplies of course; the quiet and careful march northwards into enemy territory; the freeing of the captured slaves.  
(No one mentions traitors or deserters or girls who kick dead slavers while sobbing or corpses hanging from tree branches. No one talks about that.)  
And finally, they say, the great hero strode into this town where the village people bowed down to her as their savior. And she planned an attack in one evening, with animals that could talk and people who would give their lives for her and her cause. The children were rescued, and she battled Stenmun to the death, even with his gigantic axe and massive strength, and she saw straight through Blayce’s deception and stabbed him straight through the heart.  
(They say nothing of Happy the warhorse who gave his life. There is no memorial, no hero’s fairwell for Gil. They don’t mention tears and grief and regret and the guilt, the never-ending guilt, that not everyone made it out that day.)  
They say it was a grand parade that marched back to Tortall, with relieved soldiers and exuberant children.  
(The ones who were there remember marching to their deaths.)  
They claim it was her execution that broke the nation into civil war.  
(They made her into a martyr. She was that, too.)  
They say that without her, not only would Tortall have lost the War, but it never would have grown and progressed as it did.  
(Look at the thanks she gets. A head lopped off and an unmarked grave.)  
They claim she was invincible. Perhaps she was. Perhaps she could have fought her knight master and former training master; perhaps she could have forsaken her vows of protection to a country that did exactly the opposite of protecting her. But she did not. That was not who she was.  
She wasn’t eight feet tall, or an amazon warrior, or gods-touched.  
She was a girl who worked harder than anyone because she wanted, more than anything else, to prove herself. She was a girl who fought for what was good and right and just. She was a girl with infinite promise too quickly snuffed out. She was a girl who started a war. She was a girl who lost everything she loved. She was also a young girl who didn’t deserve this fate. She was a girl who should have been alive instead of being incredible. She was a girl who lived and loved and fought and died at 18.

(They forget that heroes aren’t meant to survive. They forget that heroes are so much easier to love when they’re dead in their glory.) 

They call her a hero and a martyr and a legend and a revolutionary. She was. 


End file.
